Handling of Mary Landrieu office caper case called 'very unusual'

A federal judge this week called a January prank in the Hale Boggs complex by four conservative activists an "extremely serious" crime that "may have lasting ramifications," but said legal proceedings against the four can be handled by a magistrate judge nonetheless.

Patrick Semansky / The Associated PressJames O'Keefe, left, and Stan Dai walk out of the St. Bernard Parish jail in Chalmette on Jan. 26.

The four men -- James O'Keefe, Stan Dai, Joseph Basel and Robert Flanagan -- were carrying out a plan to enter U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu's office, one posing as a telephone repairman, when they were arrested by federal authorities. They are due to be arraigned in court Wednesday. All are expected to plead guilty to entering a federal building under false pretenses, a misdemeanor.

Under federal law, a guilty plea to a felony charge must be entered before a district judge rather than before a magistrate. But misdemeanor cases can be handled from start to finish by magistrates, though the district judge whose section receives the case may opt to handle it anyway.

It's not clear, then, what prompted U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval's order this week, which Dane Ciolino, a professor at Loyola Law School, called "very unusual."

"Usually in misdemeanors, district judges don't get involved in any respect," Ciolino said. "Certainly there are hundreds or maybe thousands of federal misdemeanor cases processed every year, and this almost never happens. Usually the magistrate handles the case, from arraignment to trial to sentencing."

Of course, the case isn't a typical misdemeanor. The four men were initially charged with felonies, and the case received national media attention. It has become something of a cause celebre in politics: O'Keefe, in particular, has been lionized by some conservatives for his undercover videotapes that shamed the ACORN community organizing group.

Some on the left, meanwhile, made hay from the Hale Boggs incident, comparing the men to the Watergate burglars whose ill-conceived break-in helped bring down President Richard Nixon.

O'Keefe has said that when they were arrested, he and his cohorts were trying to investigate complaints that constituents calling Landrieu's office couldn't get through to criticize the Democrat's support of President Obama's health care reform bill.

Duval's order says the "breaching of the security" at Hale Boggs is "an extremely sensitive matter."

"Federal buildings and federal officers have been and are the target of threats, and on occasion the victims of acts of violence," the order says in part. "Deception is alleged to have been used by the defendants to achieve their purposes, which in and of itself is unconscionable. Perceived righteousness of a cause does not justify nefarious and potentially dangerous actions."

The order also says that the prank "may result in a public building being less accessible to law-abiding citizens."